Tekken Revolution Review: Tekken 3 for a new generation?

So, If you haven't been scouring the playstation store, you might have missed the new Free to Play Tekken Revolution, which released a short time ago. I was a little disappointed by the lack of news on the main page of IGN, but you can't stay mad forever. Anyway, I'm sure you might be wondering why I settled on this particular title.

Well, Tekken Revolution is an interesting half-step into a new direction for the series. First of all, I would like to mention the game's excellent soundtrack, which features a large variety of styles, but maintains a common theme of traditional music styling with the interesting addition of electronic synthesizers and beats. This soundtrack in particular sounds more like a callback to the fan favorite entry of the series, Tekken 3. Although the game resembles the graphics previously seen in Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (2012), you will find some major gameplay changes that have been implemented for reasons unknown. One of these changes isn't an addition, but a subtraction. In Tekken Revolution, some the more extreme combos, those including ground bounces, are no longer possible. This change, although jarring to a combo-friendly player, seems to change the pacing considerably. In my two days of playing, I found that my juggles were no longer restricted to doing the most damage, so much as looking stylish and pushing the opponent into the proper position for a followup. This subtraction also heavily changes the pacing of a match; if one were to play a match in a game prior to this entry in the series, the longer combos (My maximum was a 17 hitter) would largely kill any momentum from building. The current flow of a match, as a result, becomes much more frenetic and frantic, with both players scrambling to land hits, compared to biding one's time, waiting to launch an extremely well practiced juggle.

Another major change of note is the new modifications to the character's attacks. Now, each character has a special attack, an altered version of a character's attack that not only has a chance of doing a critical hit, but also a few invincibility frames. In order to push another new feature that will be outlined later, some of the moves were also changed into critical attacks, having the chance of critical damage, but minus the invincibility. Where I was initially happy with the idea of special and critical attacks, the reality is that these new changes can be a detriment to serious gameplay. The special attack in particular, with its immunity to hits poses a new problem to gameplay. There were many online matches where my opponent would do nothing but use the specials to counterattack my efforts. These matches quickly devolved into offensive fake outs and using a special to counter the other players special. Upon further inspection, it appears that Namco chose wisely the attacks to give these special attributes. The attacks chosen, although powerful, have a high recovery time, which a defensive player can use to their advantage. A side note about this feature is that the special and critical attacks have custom effects that signify their use. A special attack is depicted during the animation by a sudden appearance of a red aura, whereas a critical attack is depicted with a blue aura. These small touches add both visual flair and defensive purpose.

Finally, another change that sets Tekken Revolution apart from its predecessors; a new RPG-like character customization system. This new system allows the player to customize each character in the roster by putting points into Strength, Endurance, and Vigor. Strength increases the damage and Endurance increases health, but Vigor is the stat that makes the most change occur to the gameplay. Vigor affects both the chance of pulling off a critical hit while performing one of the aforementioned special or critical attacks and the amount of health required to trigger a rage state. The rage state is a fairly recent concept to the Tekken series where a character who is low on health will gain a damage bonus and fancy aura for the remainder of the round. At first, I thought of this gameplay mechanic as somewhat unbalanced and unfair, but as I played, I found that unless my opponent had spent an absurd amount of time giving their character huge stat bonuses, the match was relatively balanced regardless of stat differences. The secret lies with the amount of difference one skill point has on a character. In terms of damage and health, one point into either of these stats is almost negligible. As I couldn't really test the vigor changes on a point-by-point basis, I could only assume that one point in this category doesn't affect the performance of the character very much.

While reading this, one might forget that this is a free to play game, and what that might mean in terms of monetizing the game. So first of all, you cannot purchase stat points for your character, there is no pay-to-win system at play here. The only thing available at launch right now is special tokens. These tokens allow you to play the modes as often as you like, but let me back up and explain this strange idea. Upon starting Tekken Revolution, the player has 2 arcade tokens and 5 player tokens. The arcade tokens grant access to the arcade mode, where you fight a series of matches against computer controlled opponents. The player tokens grant access to either ranked or unranked online player versus player matches. Something strange to think about is the roster size, which initially is a measly eight characters, with four being unlockable from playing often. I'm going to let that sink in for a second, twelve characters. Not since Tekken 3 have there been this few characters, and on top of that, they seem to be a mixed bag of choices. Jin Kazama, one of the main characters since Tekken 3, is nowhere to be found, while others (Leo) seem to be here for no reason. So far, there is a promise of more content, but at this point, the roster is one of the biggest problems that takes away from Tekken Revolution's overall enjoyment level.

One of the few complaints I have with the game is the complete removal of the ridiculous character customization system; which was a recent addition to the franchise. Although a valid argument could be made against the importance of Marshall Law having shoulder pads, a cape, a domino mask, and a shirt that says "Pay Me" on it while fighting another character, my response is a very loud "Why Not!?" Also absent from this version of Tekken is the Alternate costumes, although this might be more paid content to arrive at a later time. Again, Kazuya's default shirtless with stylish pants is fine, but the familiarity of the awesome purple and red suit would be appreciated. Possibly the most strangest thing missing from Tekken Revolution is the Training mode. In a game with so many possibilities for combos and attacks, a practice mode is essential. I often tell stories to friends about days where I would lose track of time practicing with one character in training stage, looking at the time to see that four hours had passed. I understand that Namco is trying more for return to the arcade style game we all fell in love with, and more on that later, but in this day and age, a fighting game needs a training mode.

I feel that the gameplay choices and small roster are a great way to draw in players that are new to the series or were discouraged by the sheer number of characters in previous entries, but due to the amount of advertising for this game (or lack thereof), the target audience might never get their hands on this game. In closing, Tekken Revolution makes some refreshing changes that shake up the familiar fighting engine just enough for beginners and novices alike to give it a try, but if you are a fan of the gameplay of the recent games, this one might not be made for you.